Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I've heard that there are people who teach Tai Chi as a martial art rather than as a method of exercise and that it can actually be quite dangerous. But I would say that pretty much any martial art can be powerful if practiced by a sufficiently gifted student, so long as it's not something silly like martial arts tea ceremony.

I don't know what aikido looks like either, but I suspect it looks a little like judo. My brother used to do judo... and of course he would always practice on me.

To my understanding, Aikido is basically a grappling art, like judo or jujutsu. Looking up the acronym MMA, I seem to get a hit relating to UFC, which I am vaguely aware of and heard somewhat to the effect that it was dominated for a while by practitioners of gracie jiu jutsu in particular. So apparently it would probably not be impractical for that, though personally I am not that convinced of grappling arts superiority. Then again, a lot does depend on the student.

And K, interesting that you dueled an olympic fencer. Olympic fencing kind of bugs me though... usually, the two people just lunge at each other and whichever hits first wins, so it seems mostly determined by who has the best reflexes. In my book that's not winning, that's mutually agreeing to die :P I tried fencing once... I was at a renaissance faire, and they had a few guys there offering fencing lessons. I had a bit of bad reflexes for it being used to somewhat different sword arts, so I would keep trying to do things I wasn't supposed to and had to restrain myself. Anyway, I ended up going 2 to 3 with my instructor, with a rather furious battle on that last point, neither one of us wanted to lose :) Relevance? Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is that with martial arts, it's not necessarily so much learning the moves as perfecting the technique and acquiring the reflexes required for it. Being properly fit for the school helps too.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Ha! Challenge! To arms and argument! :D


The slow thing that is done in tai chi is called a form.

Yes, the form is often practiced real slow, and yes, many old men do it. Once you are good you can also perform the form fast (if you want to), and some of the old people can do more than just the form:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUf1llA3HXg

Also, moving slow isn't easy. Does your friend sweat during the form? I didn't, until I slowed down. I had been doing it too fast for several months! :doh: That's what you get for not having a teacher.

Many tai chi teachers don't even know that tai chi is a martial art, and of course anything they teach won't be a martial art either. It doesn't mean that your friend can't practice his meditative tai chi, or that other people can't practice just-for-show modern Wushu. I, however, am not interested in learning just the form, or in learning gymnastics. I want to learn the martial art, which has forms and (some) show, but also lots of fun stuff you won't get from the other two.


I bolded the parts that tai chi teaches. :D

I speak about "tricks" instead of "moves", because sometimes similar movement can be done in slightly different ways. It's still a single "move", but at the same time, several "tricks". Learning all the tricks isn't what martial arts are about, because in a real fight you don't know what tricks are allowed and what the other guy is going to do.

A form can have a hundred movements, and the flowery names are a great help for learning all the tricks. I was taught to use "grasping bird's tail" to parry a straight punch while blocking the attacker's other hand, like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2co2w288Tho

In addition, the form helps with posture, footwork and balance, doing the posture very slow and very low will strengthen your legs, and practicing daily will help you learn to perform it more precisely. There are other ways to practice the same stuff, of course.


It looks like you have practiced more martial arts than I, and I'm impressed with your fencing merits.
Regardless, I disagree. The movements "that work" are simplifications. "Boxing is about punching" is a simplification, because a good punch relies on good footwork and balance and bluffing.
You can learn lots of useful tricks very fast. These tricks can be stripped-down street-versions, or applications based on tai chi form, or aikido wrist locks. They can be useful and save your life, but they're only one part of the story.

The tricks you use don't matter as much as the other stuff: your balance and speed and reflexes, your attitude, your ability to think fast and outsmart others, if you noticed you're in danger ot not, etc. I think it's the same thing you're saying in here:

(What do you mean about Bruce Lee, btw? Was he beaten up by some fan or something?)

In the short time I practiced tai chi (about a week) I didn't learn much about balance, but I've been practicing what little form I learned and it has helped a little. I did go through nice two-person drills where you have to react to your partner's movement, follow him when he steps backwards and change direction when he changes direction, and I'd love to do them again. They are very fun to do, and challenging, and teach reflexes and footwork.
Here is a great video about pushing hands practice. It starts with basics, and then moves to showing applications.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkyq9FljlG8


Now, before I go any further, I have to say I can't fight with tai chi. Not yet, at least. However, in a week of tai chi I learned more than in the ~2 years I practiced a Korean kicking art. In there, I only learned tricks: kicks, punches, counters to different kicks, parries to straight punches, etc.
In tai chi, I learned lots of new tricks, but also the fact that tricks alone won't be enough.

I have seen one (1) MMA match which a tai chi- bagua-sanshou fighter won. I think it was his first MMA match. I'm trying to find it, but I haven't had any luck. It didn't look like tai chi, of course, because he wasn't doing a form.

I've been learning aikido for about half a year now. Aikido as I've been taught is nowhere near as brutal or direct as the tai chi I was taught, even though it shares some similar ideas. The practice has been too static, for one thing. We almost always practice a spesific counter-move to a spesific attack. The tricks are good, but we always practice from the same, static pose. I'd love to have this kind of practice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK7w1j-zRCQ

That's from a martial arts school in Rome, but that kind of practice could work in ANY martial art. Wonderful stuff.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

A tea ceremony master was walking through the town market one day when he accidentally jostled a samurai. The samurai took great offense, but because the samurai and the tea ceremony master were of the same social caste, the samurai could not simply lop off the tea ceremony master's head. So the samurai challenged the tea ceremony master to a duel the following dawn.

Now the tea ceremony master knew nothing of sword fighting, but was bound by honor to show up for this duel. Not wanting to embarrass himself, he went to the town sword master and asked the sword master if he could be taught to use a sword. The sword master was rather flustered, not really being able to teach much in the space of one evening. He showed how to hold a sword, how to do a basic sword stroke, and then said this;.

"I can teach you nothing about how to fight this evening. But I will tell you this; Go to the bridge in the morning, hold the sword thusly over your head. Think of the tea ceremony. When your opponent approaches, strike with all your might."

The next morning at dawn the sword master stood at one end of the bridge and the samurai arrived at the other. The tea ceremony master held up his sword as he had been shown and thought of the tea ceremony. The samurai watched the tea ceremony master for a good while. Finally he bowed, turned, and walked away.

Here endeth the lesson. ;-)


I could write a LOT about the martial side of tai-chi, but Endoperez did a pretty good job of defending it.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

That was supposed to be an obscure joke, but thanks for the story :)

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Well, Endo basically made the same points that I would, so I'll just clarify a few points:

1. I've studied the martial form of Tai chi, as well as martial form of Tai chi saber fencing, European fencing with saber and epee, and karate, and I've picked up a few moves from various people I've sparred with that range from Kung Fu to Aikido to Capoeira and escrima(sp?). That's a pretty diverse set of martial skills, but it is not even uncommon for any serious martial artist to try several forms for several years to cover perceived holes in technique (or just to keep interest since once you are conditioned for one form learning another is child's play).

2. At the end of the day, being a good fighter is about being really physically fit and training yourself in enough situations to have an appropriate response that comes instinctively. Breaking someone's nose with the flat of your hand is no different from grabbing a bar glass and smashing it across their face: both with take the fight right out of anyone who is not a professional fighter or soldier.

And that's the essence of the martial arts: having an answer to a situation. Tai chi is about keeping your balance and redirecting an enemy while KC is about locking up an opponent and tossing them into another guy and Aikido is about being able to take a fall while tossing your opponent. Each has a solution to the same situations and some are better in some situations. KC is great if you are bigger than your enemy, Tai chi for being smaller, and aikido if you are about the same size....however, each will do the job in a pinch.

But I doubt I'll convince anyone. The marketing behind all martial or fighting arts has been that there is a "secret" to fighting that only comes from a teacher and that teacher's special forms of initiations. The lie is told by Navy SEALs and wizened Asian masters alike and it's the same techniques of marketing used to sell potato chips and luxury cars.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

No, actually that made perfect sense to me. Maybe I just didn't need enough convincing.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Two thumbs for Endoperez and K!
One small comment on mentioned Bruce Lee: Tai Chi was the first MA he studied. :) Actually, it can be seen as he often preferred relatively low "half-horse" stance to the high frontal one which he learned later in win-cnun (sp?).

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Wing chun?

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Coming from you, that's a compliment. Especially as I thought I was arguing against you!

I'll borrow the idea of your last post into another forum. In a computer game, it'd be interesting to have a good/evil axis represented by the character having a different answer/reaction to the same situation.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Quite probably. I don't have English books on subject on hand.
By the way, a practical application of tai chi was shown in the film Shootfighter with Bolo Yeung for those interested.